It’s been close to a month now since I landed at Lambert Airport in Saint Louis after spending close to 36 hours traversing across half the planet. Since then I’ve seen a lot of friends and family, spent a lot of time eating and sleeping, and probably blown a whole paycheck on gas for my car, all things that I wasn’t able to do for the previous 6 months. It’s been good to have a chance to come home, spend some time in my own bed, shower without shower shoes and have a weekend off again. The problem you see is that all good things come to an end.
It’s not as if going to the great brown ocean is a bad thing. I’m pretty excited to get back out there and spend some more time with friends and helping our guys on the ground take the fight to the enemy. But there are days when I wake up after a comfortable nights sleep and think to myself, there’s got to be another job I can do that would allow me to wake up here every night. The trouble you see is that spending time in the office has made me very aware of what I’m not missing here.
People constantly complaining about how tough they have it, how they are working over time when there are 3 days left in the pay period. When people griping about their bosses or how they have multiple bosses or how they don’t want to go to work any more. Not to forget all those other various whines and moans that people have, also not to forget that I’ve complained about my boss more than any one while I’ve been back.
Someone needs to wake up and realize that even though they’re working overtime, at least they can go home at night and sleep. At least they can spend time with friends and family on the weekends even if they have to work during the day. They don’t have to worry about being that one in a million that gets a mortar dropped on their head while they’re sleeping. They don’t jump every time there is a loud noise because the base might have been infiltrated and someone planted a car bomb outside their tent. But I’ll take all that over sitting in the office hating life every single day until I retire.
The other day I asked someone if they enjoyed their job. They responded with “At least it’s a job, especially in this economy.” So, does that mean they don’t really like their job but since there aren’t any other options, they take it? Is that like being married to someone you don’t really like but you can’t do any better so you’ll take them? I’m not down with hating life and I’m not down with accepting something that I don’t like. But ultimately we aren’t always able to choose what we want and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do something that, despite its many drawbacks, I enjoy very much for the time being.
If you fast forward 30 days I should be sitting on a plane on my way out to the Middle East. It’ll be another whole new experience with my final destination being Iraq with a short layover in Kuwait. I’ll be there with some friends from Afghanistan by way of Oregon and New York. Flying around the world, spending time in war zones, all while getting paid… I don’t think you can beat this life. Anyone want to meet me in London or the Maldives in March?
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